The Delhi High Court today dismissed a plea filed by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and other leaders of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) party against the summoning order in defamation proceedings initiated by BJP Delhi leader Rajiv Babbar in the trial court.

Babbar's defamation case alleges that Kejriwal and other leaders of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) defamed the BJP by accusing it of orchestrating the removal of 30 lakh names from the Delhi electoral rolls, specifically targeting communities such as Bania, Muslims, and others.

The Bench of Justice Anoop Kumar Mendiratta said, "Under the constitutional schemes, the citizens have a right to know the truthful and correct information in order to form appropriate opinion of the social processes. However, at the same time, a political party cannot be permitted to sponsor the print media for political purposes, thereby stinging mud and making mischievous, false, and defamatory imputations on the rival political party."

"Imputations in the present case, are prima facie defamatory, with the intention of vilifying the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) and gaining undue political mileage by attributing that BJP was responsible for deletion of names of about 30 lakh names of voters belonging to particular communities," the Court said.

"..the summoning order passed by the trial court, for commission of offences under 499 and 500 IPC does not call for any interference... for the forgoing reasons, the petition is dismissed. Parties are directed to appear on October 3," the Court ordered. Accordingly, the Court dismissed the petition.

The controversy began when Kejriwal and other AAP leaders made public statements accusing the BJP of being responsible for the large-scale deletion of voter names. Babbar filed the defamation case, arguing that these allegations were made with the intent to harm the BJP's reputation by alienating specific voter groups, including the Bania, Poorvanchalis, and Muslim communities. Babbar argued that the voters' list is solely under the jurisdiction of the Election Commission of India and that the BJP had no role in the deletions.

In February 2020, the Delhi High Court had stayed the defamation case proceedings against Kejriwal and other AAP leaders, including Sushil Kumar Gupta, Atishi Marlena, and Manoj Kumar, who were named in the case. The stay came after Kejriwal and the other accused AAP leaders approached the High Court, seeking to quash two lower court orders: a magisterial court's order dated March 15, 2019, and a sessions court's order dated January 28, 2020.

The Trial Court had earlier observed that the allegations made by Kejriwal and the AAP leaders were prima facie defamatory and targeted the BJP. Babbar contended that these statements caused irreparable harm to his reputation and sought legal redress.

Kejriwal had argued before the High Court that the defamation complaint was vague and did not clearly identify the "person aggrieved" by the alleged defamatory statements. He contended that the complaint was not maintainable and should be quashed.

Cause Title: Arvind Kejriwal & Ors. v. State & Anr. [CRL.M.C. 1013/2020]

Appearance:-

Petitioner: Senior Advocate Mohit Mathur, Advocatse Md. Irshad, Rishikesh Kumar, Karan Sharma, Vivek Jain, Mohit Siwagh, Mayank Sharma, Harsh Gautam

Respondent: Senior Advocate Sonia Mathur, Advocates Sanjay Lao (Standing Counsel GNCTD), Ajay Burman, Piyush Beriwal, Neeraj, Himanshu Sethi, Divik Mathur, Nikhil Kumar Chaubey, Himanshu Singh

Click here to read/download Judgment


Justice Anoop Kumar MendirattaDelhi High CourtDefamationArvind KejriwalAam Aaadmi Party

Sukriti Mishra